B House
Architect: Infraestudio
Location: Havana, Cuba
Type: House
Year: 2022
Photographs: Laurian Ghinitoiu, Mauricio Chavez
The following description is courtesy of the architects. On a cliff west of Havana is this house surrounded by the sea. Despite having a large program size required, we had the intuition that the house should use itself to hide in the landscape and maintain the characteristics of an existing old house: its 14m x 14m perimeter, gabled roof and portal on all four sides.
As it is a weekend house with amazing views, it had to be completely open to the landscape to take advantage of its position, and have the possibility of being closed once back in the city. Two types of buildings accompanied us in this project: some aboriginal cabins from the West of Cuba, where the roof is at the same time the room, while everything else opens up; and the houses that are used to dry tobacco, where palm wood covers everything.
While on the ground floor all the public areas are concentrated, being an open space of 14 x 14m without walls or columns, the main room hangs from the ceiling, and those of the guests are hidden underground illuminated by a long and narrow patio. The combination of a portico without enclosures and two 14m long beams allows the house to only lean on its perimeter.
This is how we achieved a sheltered house made of palm wood, which hides a larger one made of glass and reinforced concrete.
